If You Believe
by moostronaut
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. A little thing inspired by the #BelieveInSherlock movement on Tumblr.
1. Chapter 1

It had all started on a bus. John usually walked wherever he needed to go, since the last time he hailed a cab he opened the door, stared at the back seat, and then found himself waving the cabbie off. So he walked. He walked to get the shopping, he walked to go to the pub, and one unruly morning he walked to 221B to get his stuff. He'd been staying at a small hotel on the other side of London for a whole week when he finally had to throw in the towel and get a clean change of clothes, but that certainly didn't mean that he had to like it. It was a dull day, sun hiding behind clouds and the city seeming oddly still. Maybe it was just him. The weather reflected how he felt, he thought.

He rounded the corner of Baker Street and slowed his pace when he saw Speedy's red overhang. He took a breath. It felt like hours before he finally reached the front steps, nearly getting run over by another cyclist when he crossed the street. It felt like even longer before he decided to sod it and open the door.

The inside smelled the same. He was sure if he'd walked into the main room he'd smell old books and science experiments and spraypaint and cigarettes, but he didn't want to smell it. He couldn't. So he passed right by the door, which seemed odd when it was closed, and up the stairs, to his room. In as little time as possible, he shoved most of his clothes into his bag that'd been sitting near his bed. He swung the bag over his shoulder and hurried out the door, passing Mrs. Hudson on his way out of the flat. He muttered a quiet "Hello," before he shut the door behind him.

And that was when he felt it. A cold drop of rain that landed on his head, and soon the drops started pattering down onto his jumper. He felt himself groan. The weather definitely knew how he was feeling.

So, he waited in the so-very London weather until a bus finally showed from around the corner, deciding to board it before his jumper had been completely soaked through. He walked down the aisle and took a seat near the back. There weren't many people aboard, and John took advantage of the fact that most of them were gathered at the front. He let himself relax into the seat, let his head lean against the window and even let himself look out at the world outside. He caught a glimpse of the golden letters of 221B before the bus pulled away, and he felt his heart sink in his chest.

And that was where it all began. He stared out the foggy bus window at the bustling streets passing him by, the view made unclear through the condensation. He stared for what very well could have been several minutes before he reached a hand over and stopped, his finger hovering above it. He didn't write anything on the clouded window, but simply sat there. Stared. Thought. And he wrote out his thoughts with his forefinger on the window of a bus. They were small letters, already starting to drip and become unreadable, but they were powerful. In the window he'd written out, _"I Believe In Sherlock Holmes"_.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day he took a cab. Mrs. Hudson had called him up, in need of his help with packing up the rest of the science equipment that took over the kitchen. He didn't think he'd be able to take a cab, let alone go back to his old flat twice in the same week. But he did. And as soon as he stepped inside again he felt the rush of all of those smells come back to him, filling his nose with all of the sweet scents that he'd grown to love in the past eight months.

"Mrs. Hudson?" he called, beckoning his landlady down the stairs to join him. But the response he heard was not from her room, but from behind the door he was afraid of opening. Well, not _afraid_. John Watson is a soldier. He wasn't afraid of opening a bloody door. He wasn't.

So he pushed it open with his fingertips and listened to it creak, and behind it he saw Mrs. Hudson. He swung the door open all the way and watched as the woman stared fondly at the very thing she'd been so cross about only months prior. The yellow smiley face spray-painted across the intricate wallpaper, and all the bullet holes that riddled it. His mouth curled into a smile before he could stop himself.

She went on to tell him that she was most definitely going to donate all of the science equipment to a school, but when he offered to help her move it she only shook her head.

"We're not in any sort of rush," she'd claimed. But he knew the real reason. It was the same reason that John hadn't bothered to pack up his mug from the cabinet, or that his laptop still sat next to his favourite chair. It was the same reason that Mrs. Hudson hadn't removed the knife from the mantle, or bothered to patch up the bullet-ridden face on the wall.

And he couldn't argue with her.

She left the room only minutes later claiming to be fixing them some tea, but John heard a bit of a crack in her voice. He let her walk out without questioning it. But soon he felt a shift in the room; a sort of silence that took him over. All the smells he loved were replaced with a putrid stench of loneliness. Cold, suffocating loneliness. He couldn't hear the sound of the kettle exploding from some sort of chemical reaction or smell the thumbs in jars of formaldehyde in the microwave; he couldn't hear the furniture being scraped up by swords or smell the wallpaper singeing from some spontaneous fire. He couldn't hear the sound of beautiful music being played expertly over the violin, bow weaving over the strings and drifting John's favourites through the flat at night.

And he never will, he realised. He felt his leg start to pain and he maneuvered himself into the nearest chair, catching himself before he fell to the floor from nausea.

_He never will. _

Not again. Not now. He could not hear or smell or see or feel any of those things ever again, because he's gone. Sherlock is gone.

_He's gone._

His head start to hurt, and his leg hurt even more. But his heart hurt the most. He let his head drop into his heads as he tried to contain himself. His breathing became erratic, but he suppressed the tears threatening to escape. He had to. He had to be strong.

Looking up from his hands he inhaled deeply, letting his eyes drift shut one more time before breathing out at last. He swallowed. Swallowed his sorrows, his doubt; anything that wouldn't help him right now. And that's when he saw it.

Among stacks of books and scattered papers beside the couch, he saw it. He gripped the side of the chair tight and raised himself out of it, bounding, limpless, to the space under the graffitied wallpaper and picked up the can of yellow spraypaint. It was the same colour as the face on the wall. Looking at it, he remembered where Sherlock must've gotten it. From the case with the spray-painted cipher, or "The Blind Banker" as he'd titled it on his blog. He gripped it tight in his hand as his mind raced through all of the possibilities, until he focused only on one.

He found himself racing out the door and plowing down the stairs, passing right by Mrs. Hudson once again as she called out to him fruitlessly about how she'd just made a fresh brew and a batch of biscuits.

"Not right now Mrs. Hudson, I haven't got any time," he spoke as quickly and frantically as him nearly sprinting out the front door of 221B.


	3. Chapter 3

He almost felt guilty. Almost. But the reason he was going to do it made it seem all worthwhile, even if he was faced with yet another ASBO. If he was, though, at least it would be for something he actually _did_ do. And that almost made him feel a little bit better. Almost.

But he ignored his head, for once, and listened to his gut. He shook the can in his hands up and down and up and down as he stared at the brick wall in front of him, hidden away in some alley just off Baker Street. He knew what to write and didn't at the same time, even when his mind settled on the only thing he _could_ possibly write. The only thing he's been thinking about for weeks.

_I Believe In Sherlock Holmes._

His right hand felt jittery rather than his left as he wrote the words, the yellow paint coating the rough bricks in a thick layer as his inexpert hands let the sprayer linger for too long. The paint dripped down from the letters in scattered places, but as he stepped back and let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, he thought it looked pretty good. It was big, bright, and the truest thing he knew.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day he received a text. Six in the morning, it was, and his phone beeped and even after he'd chosen to ignore it, he couldn't fall back asleep. His eyes stayed wide open, thinking, calculating, and he might as well have ached to see it. In the pit of his stomach he felt a throb, an ache, hope, as he closed his eyes, only to reopen them to see the sender.

"_I know it was you."_

His stomach dropped. It otherwise would've worried him or even caused his heart to race if the text had it ended with "SH", but alas it'd been from Lestrade, and it'd been followed by a second text,

"_Nice job."_

John let out a sigh and smiled unceremoniously. He didn't reply. He knows Lestrade is lucky he didn't get sacked for backing Sherlock, he really does, and in the back of his head John is thankful and somewhat flattered by both the Detective Inspector himself and his message.

He decided to reply after all.

"_I'd cover London in those words, if I could," _He decided to say. He found his left hand aching as he typed. _"The whole world."_

Tea will surely calm his nerves.He walked over to the small kitchenette in the small room in the small hotel, and put the kettle on.

Another beep.

"_You don't have to."_ Greg had replied. Another beep, _"Have you seen the telly lately?"_

"_No. Why?"_ John sent, walking over to the small television in front of the bed and switching it on. The news blared and nearly drowned out another beep.

"_Have a look and see."_

He did.

And the reporter stood in front of a great wall of graffiti on London's east end, and behind her, five words in bright yellow stood out against the rainbow of colours in the background, and those five words were repeated on the headline below her, and those five words read none other than, _"I Believe In Sherlock Holmes"_.

And it was not John's handiwork.


End file.
